Uttering the name of the colony world caused the imager to unfold a virtual scroll of text above the ghostly orb marking Phorus’s current location. Data on the geology of the rocky, airless outpost, census reports and more information streamed past.
Azkaellon studied the tactical plot. ‘If the flotilla remains gathered, we can pass close to one, perhaps two of the other planets before we close on the capital.’
‘I won’t break up the fleet, not yet,’ said the primarch. ‘But circulate alternate deployment plans to the squadron leaders and command wing officers. If it becomes necessary to split the approach or throw a ring of steel around the cluster, I want my warships ready to execute the order at a moment’s notice.’
‘Admiral DuCade has prepared some options.’
Sanguinius nodded, still studying the image. ‘I’m sure she has.’
Past the orbit of Phorus, there was a wide gap of several light-minutes until the frigid sphere of Holst. Unlike the barren, cratered surface of the most distant planet, Holst had been fully colonised by the Imperium. The ringed, blue-white world was rich in gas ice, and beneath the mantle of a thin nitrogen atmosphere, chemical refineries dotted the surface alongside massive hive-cities to house the workers that toiled to harvest the metallic slush for the engines of empire. The remains of a third planet, believed by the Mechanicum’s own scouts to be the heavy core and broken moons of a collapsed gas giant, formed an asteroid belt breaking the plane of the Signus ecliptic in two. The locals had a colloquial name for the belt; they called it the ‘White River’, on account of the high solar reflectivity of the asteroids that comprised it.
The cluster’s inner region of planets, those that fell within the acceptable parameters for null- or low-exertion atmospheric modification, were a trio of Terran-sized worlds. Two were bread-basket colonies – the windswept agricultural settlement of Scoltrum and Ta-Loc, a stormy ocean world – and the third was the densely populated capital planet of Signus Prime, the fleet’s ultimate destination.
Past the life zone, closer in towards the red sun, lay Signus Tertiary and the innermost planet, Kol. Both worlds had some human population, but they were radiation-soaked stones home only to small outposts and ore mines.
Sanguinius and his commanders had spent days poring over the maps and data from the Signus Cluster in the wake of the Warmaster’s orders, considering how an enemy like the nephilim might annex each planet and turn it to their use. The Angel theorised that they would flock to the temperate worlds first, taking the capital and the harvest-planets, bedding in there until every human voice on the surface was either silenced or crying for them behind one of their obscene flesh-masks.
‘The magnetic field of Signus Gamma will partially mask our approach,’ Azkaellon was saying. ‘If the xenos have ships on picket duty, there’s a good chance we will be able to close to kill range before they are aware of us.’
‘Have the forward scout elements progress to attack range of the outer planet,’ Sanguinius replied. ‘All non-fleet vessels are to be considered enemy combatants until indicated otherwise. I want to be informed the moment any contact is encountered.’
The chime sounded again. ‘My lord?’
Sanguinius immediately heard the alteration in the timbre of Admiral DuCade’s voice, and he shot a look at Azkaellon, who had picked up the shift in nuance as well. The analysis of the words was reflexive, as instant as breathing to them. The primarch wasted no time on preamble. ‘What’s wrong?’
DuCade didn’t ask how he knew; she had been in his service long enough to understand that the Blood Angels simply sensed things faster than a normal human being. ‘Initial scans of local space read no drive plumes or energy displacement congruent to that of Imperial ship classes or known nephilim power signatures.’
The primarch raised an eyebrow. He knew there was more. ‘Go on.’
‘Extreme range sensors are reading metallic objects adrift off the port beam, closer to Phorus. At my discretion, I have diverted a scout to investigate.’
‘Your hypothesis?’
‘They are most likely derelict ships, Lord Sanguinius. No power or life signs. We’re reading the by-products of multiple weapons barrages in that zone and…’ DuCade paused, as if she were struggling to find the right words. ‘Some anomalous energy readings.’
‘What about machine-call signals?’ said Azkaellon, as his master walked through the shimmering hololith and to the bowed windows of the observation dome.
‘No detections.’ There was something else underlying the admiral’s speech pattern, and it was unfamiliar to both the primarch and his Guard Commander. They shared a look as they processed her statement.
In any colonised star system, even one under strict military control, there would be a sphere of vox-communications passing back and forth between starships and orbital stations, bleed-through from commercial data networks, even the low frequency traffic of civilian broadcasts. It was virtually impossible to silence the voices of a single planet, let alone seven of them.
‘I would suggest the astropaths commune and seek for their kindred,’ offered Azkaellon. ‘The invaders may have enforced a system-wide vox-blackout.’
When DuCade spoke again, the primarch realised he was detecting something in her tone he had not heard her express; she was afraid. ‘Agreed. The communications channels are… They are active, but there is nothing there.’ She gave an exasperated sound. ‘Forgive me, lords. I’ve never encountered this before.’
‘Let me hear it,’ said Sanguinius.
‘One moment.’
There was a dull crackle as the audio channels switched, and then a wash of noise, slow and sullen, emerged from the lips of the silver-faced cherubs. The sound was the static of dead space, the neutral mutter of background radiation projected into the void by the Signusi stars and the countless trillions of other radioactive sources that made up the noise of the universe.
And yet, it wasn’t. ‘The tone is all wrong.’
The words came from Mendrion, who stood off to one side. He had been silent and stoic in his position at the command throne’s side for hours, and yet the sound through the speakers drew him to speak his thoughts aloud without pause.
Sanguinius nodded. ‘Yes.’ The static surf had a component to it that was ghostly and intangible. The primarch listened hard, his keen mind and improved senses extending into the noise in a way that a non-augmented human like DuCade would never have been capable of. There was something in there, buried so deep in the sound that even he could not fully grasp it. No one in the chamber dared to breathe as the Angel strained to truly hear.
It slipped from him, fading and retreating each time he tried to focus on it. Was that a whisper he heard, a name? A paracusic sibilant, as distant as if it were a shout on the far side of the world. His lips thinned in frustration, and finally he relented, making a throat-cutting gesture.
‘That’s enough, admiral,’ said Azkaellon, and the signal died abruptly.
‘What do you make of that, gentlemen?’ said DuCade, her cool demeanour returning.
‘I want a detail of vox-monitors to maintain a full watch rotation, until otherwise noted,’ Sanguinius told her. ‘If this is some xenos trick, we would do well to keep a weather eye on it. In the meantime, proceed as planned.’
‘So ordered. DuCade out.’
‘What in Baal’s name was that sound?’ Lohgos said quietly. ‘Mark me, my skin crawled to hear it...’
‘Some form of communications countermeasure, nothing more,’ Azkaellon insisted, his tone firm.
Sanguinius looked to each of his honour guard in turn, searching their faces for a reaction to what they had just heard. His gaze held on Mendrion’s frown. ‘Do you concur?’
The Sanguinary Guard stiffened, his moment of introspection vanishing. ‘Aye, lord. It must be as the Guard Commander says, a denial tactic of the nephilim.’
The primarch turned away, although it was unclear if he was satisfied with the answer. ‘Azkaell
on, contact all wing commanders and Legion captains. I want a full status report from all fleet elements before we pass inside the limit of Phorus’s orbit, and tactical evaluations from the scout ships.’
Azkaellon saluted crisply and the rest of the Sanguinary Guard mirrored his actions. Mendrion’s mailed fist rose to his chest only a fraction of a second slower than those of his squadmates and his expression hardened.
The vox-noise was difficult to forget; even now, the memory of it was there at the back of his thoughts, lodged in his mind like a splinter. He dismissed it with a small effort, blotting it out with the recollection of a martial symphonic piece he had heard at a recital many years ago, at a muster on Vanaheim.
Foolish, he thought, to attribute patterns where there were none. For a moment, Mendrion had believed that he heard a voice swimming deep in that ocean of white noise, a crack-throated murmur or a snake-hiss. Something with the shape of a name, but not real, not actual. He dismissed the moment, letting the memory of the music smother it.
Marching after his commander, Mendrion let the word slip away and within moments the name had been forgotten.
The portside cruiser bay in the Red Tear’s ventral sail was cleared to allow the frigate Numitor to have the docking cylinder to itself, and as a precaution all auxiliaries and non-combatant crew were dismissed to other duties. The scout ship hung in the middle of the vast space, bright beams of light bathing its flanks in splashes of stark illumination. The Numitor’s crew had agreed to remain embarked while a party of medicae servitors led by Warden Berus moved through the craft in sealed armour, examining every one of them and taking detailed reports of what they had discovered in the wreck zone.
Meros paused at the wide airgate and donned his helmet, locking it to the neck seal of his armour. He heard a high-pitched squeak of air pressure as the ring bit tight, and a string of active icons flashed in his peripheral vision. The atmosphere inside the chamber drained away, deadening sound until there was only the faint hum of the armour’s internal systems and the rasp of the Apothecary’s own breathing.
He glanced at the other Blood Angels standing around him. Across the airlock, his company commander Captain Furio was in silent conversation with the one of the Red Tear’s complement of Apothecaries, their words being carried on a frequency that only they shared. A handful of Space Marines from Brother-Sergeant Madidus’s squad were there, but most of the group were medicae, drawn from dozens of units by a brisk summons with little explanation as to the reason. Meros wondered why armed battle-brothers were needed to escort a medical party on the deck of the primarch’s own flagship, but he kept his question to himself. Already, barrack-room hearsay had spread among the Legion that Numitor and the other scouts had discovered something unusual among the wrecked ships drifting beyond the edges of the Signus Cluster.
The airgate’s far hatch inched silently open, and Furio’s voice clicked on over the general channel. ‘Void action protocols are in effect. Gravity systems are active on the docks but don’t stray too close to the frigate.’
Meros looked out and saw the Numitor drifting in the null zone in the middle of the wide open bay, like a vast red and silver dagger at rest on an arming rack. Tethers and gantries held it in place before a yawning maw that opened into space. At this angle, he could just see the point of the Red Tear’s bow far overhead. But his attention was immediately taken by the lines of black polyplas containers arranged in careful rows across the service deck. Meros recognised the familiar shape of the collapsible coffin pods; many times he had been called upon to seal the bodies of the recently dead inside similar containers.
‘Our brothers–?’ For an instant, one of the other Apothecaries forgot protocol and spoke out over the general vox.
The expressionless mask of Captain Furio’s helm shook once. ‘These casualties are not of our number. No lives were lost.’ He let that sink in and then went on. ‘Each of you has an assigned number of bodies. You will examine them and then pool your findings. Observe all biohazard procedures, report anything anomalous immediately. Begin.’
Meros followed his comrades out on to the service deck and found the four coffins set aside for him to examine. Pausing to re-check the seals on his armour, he activated the medicae gauntlet around his right forearm and brought its scanner heads to an active state. The Apothecary Minoris who had spoken out of turn was nearby, with his own group of dead to scrutinise. He glanced at Meros, and there was a click in his ears as the younger legionary voxed him on a discreet channel.
‘Why are they doing this?’ he asked. ‘Why have they brought these corpses back here, if they fear there is some sort of contagion?’
‘Standard operating procedure. The Red Tear has the most advanced medicae labs and technical facilities of any ship in the fleet,’ said Meros.
The other Apothecary said nothing and cracked open one of the coffins with a puff of displaced air. Meros heard the thin hiss of an indrawn breath over the open channel.
Cautiously, he did the same. The lid of the container slid back and Meros found himself looking down on what seemed like a heap of clothing, curiously laid out in the shape of a person. The illuminator on his backpack flicked on and banished the shadows inside the coffin. It revealed first a lumpy mask of pinkish-grey that mocked the form of a human face, glittering slightly with a patina of oxygen ice.
Meros panned down the length of the coffin, his eyes narrowing behind his helmet optics as he attempted to fathom what he was looking at.
His first thought was of the eldar, and in sympathetic resonance, the healed wound in his gut tensed. The flesh-mask reminded him of the xenos reavers and the murderous play they indulged in with their victims. Meros had seen them cut off the faces of their prey and sew them into cloaks, as trophies.
But this was not the same thing. The mass of flesh before him was whole and full. He reached in and snipped open the clothing shrouding the body, discovering that the corpse was actually a female; the state of it had made that less than obvious.
The medicae gauntlet’s auspex ticked and whirred through its scan program, and the device’s internal reservoirs of knowledge were equally unfamiliar with the manner of this death. The body lacked any kind of rigidity, it was sunken and shrivelled in a way that suggested a peculiar form of decay – and yet the auspex insisted that the body had been well preserved by the vacuum of space. He wondered if he had been given a corpse that had been flattened by some kind of great impact.
‘I was told that the scouts found the wreckage of more than a dozen different craft drifting in Phorus’s gravity shadow,’ said the other Blood Angel. ‘Civilian haulers, defence force monitors, shuttles. Many of them not even warp-capable. Trajectory suggested they were fleeing the inner worlds.’
Meros listened as he reached into the coffin, to take the hand of the dead woman.
‘The ships had been torn apart.’
He nodded. ‘The nephilim use displacement weapons. Very effective at close range.’ Meros’s hand touched the corpse and the woman’s fingers were like streamers of rag, limp and wilted.
‘No,’ said the other Blood Angel. ‘I mean literally torn apart. As if by some kind of shearing force.’
Meros was only half-listening as he kneaded the skin of the corpse’s arm. It bent back and forth, without rigor or great resistance. A strange thought occurred to him, and with care, he drew his battle knife and cut into the dead woman’s forearm, directly above the wrist. The blade passed easily through the meat of her, never changing in resistance. He peered at the strangely bloodless stump. He saw nerves, veins and arteries, muscles…
The Apothecary looked back at the body, at its strangely deflated, sagging shape. ‘She has no bones.’ He poked the flesh, feeling it give beneath his touch. He had to say it again to fix it in his thoughts. ‘There are no bones in this corpse.’
He replaced the limb he had cut and went to the next coffin, then the next and the one after that. The others were all males, all garbed in ship
-suits that identified them as crewmen from a fuel tender. Once more, the bodies had the same shrunken dimensions as the woman’s corpse, the same flaccid limbs, collapsed torsos and heads. They were little more than bags of skin and meat in the shape of a human being, misshapen under the weight of their own mass.
He looked around and saw that his brothers were coming to the same conclusion. Every one of the dozens of bodies on the service deck was identical in the manner of death.
‘Their blood has been altered,’ said the junior Apothecary. He had drawn off a vial of the vitae, and he held it up to the light. Instead of a crimson fluid, the matter within the crystal tube was thick and sluggish, an oily paste almost purple in colour.
Meros stood up. ‘How is this possible?’
‘That is my question to you and your brothers.’ A new voice came over the vox-channel as another warrior-commander approached them, Captain Furio at his side.
Meros recognised Captain Raldoron’s laurels and insignia, and he bowed to the two veterans. ‘My lords.’
‘Answer him, Meros,’ ordered Furio. ‘That’s why you are here.’
‘I’ll need to make a deeper analysis.’ He hesitated. ‘I confess I have never come across this manner of injury.’
‘Later,’ Raldoron insisted. ‘For now, I want your first impressions.’
‘There are no entry wounds,’ offered the other Apothecary. ‘It’s not as if someone opened them, removed their skeletons and sewed them closed again.’
‘Could it be the result of a viral effect, or bio-weapon?’ said Furio. ‘Something that disintegrates human bone and cartilage.’
‘No, sir.’ Meros shook his head, thinking it through. ‘That would leave waste matter inside the corpse. There would be bloating, the expression of toxic materials.’ He paused for a moment. ‘In theory, a freak teleportation effect might create something like this. But not so uniform, not over so many victims.’ Meros gestured at the lines of coffins.
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